The craft and coffee streets west of the temple
寺の西側の職人通りと喫茶店 てらのにしがわのしょくにんどおりときっさてん
Hoppy Street, Denboin-dori, the old coffee houses and the shops that make one thing by hand.
Worth itLocal life · Craft · Food · History · Walkable
West and north of Sensoji the tourist lane gives way to Asakusa's own streets. Denboin-dori is a decorated street of Edo-style shopfronts with craft shops — combs, hand-cut paper, festival goods; Hoppy Street is a row of open-front izakaya that start serving stewed beef and the cheap beer-substitute called hoppy at eleven in the morning; the Rokku entertainment strip has the last variety theatre and the old cinemas' ghosts. Coffee houses like Kabuki-style Gallery Ef in an 1868 warehouse and the 1920s-style Angelus are where Asakusa sits down.
Don't miss
- A morning beer and stewed beef at a Hoppy Street counter, among people who have been up since four
- Denboin-dori's shops selling festival hanten coats and hand-cut lacquer combs
- Asakusa Engei Hall, where rakugo comic storytelling runs all day
- Tip
- Rakugo needs no Japanese for the physical bits; sit for one act and leave when you like.
- Best time
- Late morning into the afternoon.
- Allow
- 90 min
- Station
- Asakusa (Ginza line) or Tawaramachi (Ginza line)
- Official site — hours, prices, closures
- www.asakusa-kankou.com · Map
Appears in
In this area: Asakusa
Sensoji Temple浅草寺
Tokyo's oldest temple, founded in 628 — a gate, a lane, a five-storey pagoda and a hall that is never closed.
60 min · Asakusa (Ginza / Asakusa lines, Tobu), exit 1
Kappabashi kitchen streetかっぱ橋道具街
Eight hundred metres of restaurant supply — knives, lacquer, ceramics, and the plastic food in every window in Japan.
90 min · Tawaramachi (Ginza line), 5 minutes; or walk 10 minutes west from Sensoji
Sumida river water bus隅田川の水上バス
Down the river from Asakusa under twelve bridges to the shogun's garden or the bay.
45 min · Asakusa (Ginza / Asakusa lines), exit 4 to the pier